PP challenge (sort of inter-forum too!)

[crisscross]

while we northern hemisphere dwellers are often in gloom, here is something to test your PP skills and see which if any software has the edge

this is an image which I genuinely want to improve my best effort on, its nearly there, just a noise problem in some very under-exposed shadow

I am also putting the challenge on juzaforum, my more normal hang-out these days, so you may be defending the reputation of CambridgeinColour as the technical spot!

A jpg 'dump' of the unedited CR2 is at http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/4...iginaldump.jpg

My best effort to date is at http://www.pbase.com/crisscross/imag...6/original.jpg
and (HR) + juza comments are at http://www.juzaforum.com/forum-en/vi...p?f=21&t=18771 or

The original .CR2 (6.9MB) is at http://www.evendine.eclipse.co.uk/images/_mg_4023.cr2

Have fun, maybe a totally different interpretation is possible. If you get anything out of it, I would be grateful if you could record the procedure & software you used so I can follow it (software allowing; I have a CS4 & neatimage as well as my usual route of DxO & NX2). Someone in our camera club is saying LR3 is amazing and really different from CS...is it? I don't want to bother with LR3 (re-)trial unless I have some good evidence.

[arith]

Certainly don't make things easy; I noticed some CA but didn't have time to sort it so used ortonised method.

ACR exposure -0.65
fill 100
recovery 100

PSE7 Topaz DeNoise 5
Topaz Detail
Medium 0.46
Large 1
boost -0.29
Shift Red-Cyan

PSE7 8 bit mode
7 duplicated layers
bottom 4 Screen x4
This order from to to bottom
Levels 4-1-242 Out 0-255
Color 100%
Pin 88%
Multiply 100% with Gauss 250 pixel blur
Screen x4

This gets this in 35 minutes including writing this:



Suspect somebody can do lots better.

[jiro]

The immediate thing that comes to my mind is using a mask for the dark areas and do separate processing. I'll post my results later. Fingers too messed up due to arthritis.

[crisscross]

thank you arith and jiro

I described it as a challenge, not something easy!!

However, I see there is now NeatImage v6 whereas I have previously been using v4; am trying to negotiate my way towards an upgrade

BTW it is a complete non-starter in any software that does not provide for effective masking. I have used 3 zones (a) the dark areas, where the issue is obviously to get a little detail and cut down on noise (b) the over-exposed area around the sun where the issue is to reduce the blown/highlights to a minimum and get them golden sun coloured (c )the rest of the image which just needs to look as if it is illuminated by a golden setting sun

There is possibly an issue of whether to crop off the landing stage or treat it as a cloning sub-challenge and widen the canal a bit

I am not sure what you were trying to do Arith, but I am hoping for something with a bit warmth. I think in CS4/5 it should be possible to toggle between ACR settings and the image masked etc as a 'smart object' and thus to increase the exposure only just enough to get a bit of detail. However I am not an experienced PS man myself and that means stretching my capability a bit

[arith]

oops, can't do masks. I was just trying to get a pleasing result, the Gauss I hoped would blur the CA and hide remaining noise. Don't know if it worked, looks a bit posturised but that is a nice chinese look.

I only do photoshopping over an entire image, well mostly.

[bambleweeney]

Copied raw file into LS and made two duplicate copies. One pushed the exposure way up to bring detail into the shadows and then a hefty ammount of noise reduction. Another underexposed a couple of stops. All three tried to claw back some of the lost highlight detaul and increased the colour temperature a tad. Then all three copies exported as TIFF and opened in Photomatix (figuring HDR may be the way to go as a quick attempt with various masks revealed artifacts all over the place. Had a quick try converting to LAB which gave some nice colours but didn't do a lot for the lost shadow detail. Anyway ...)
Really low settings in Photomatix to give something half way pleasant without too much noise and then imported the HDR into PS and blended with the original (via tone masks) to get back some of the shoreline shadow detail. Loads of messing about with burn and dodge layer and then got moaned at because I hadn't cooked dinner yet (my life sucks sometimes honestly).
Put the oven on and added some 'atmosphereric' shading foreground right water and top right sky while it warmed up.

[crisscross]

Copied raw file into LS ....and then got moaned at because I hadn't cooked dinner yet (my life sucks sometimes honestly).
Put the oven on and added some 'atmosphereric' shading foreground right water and top right sky while it warmed up.

Thank you Paul, atmosphere rather nicely cooked. Sorry for ignorance, what is LS?

PS I am no good as a witness, especially in divorce courts; I assume neglecting food is valid grounds in France.

[crisscross]

Can someone please help me with use of NeatImage v6 in CS4? I have a layer with a mask excluding the bright RH half. When I get the NI panel from the Filter menu, it picks up the mask instead of the layer content and I can't jiggle my way to sort it.

NI v6 looks a lot better than NI4 which is what I have used in the past, mostly with PSE & may be the key to my efforts.

I am still trying, not just leaving you good people to do my work for me.

[bambleweeney]

Thank you Paul, atmosphere rather nicely cooked. Sorry for ignorance, what is LS?

PS I am no good as a witness, especially in divorce courts; I assume neglecting food is valid grounds in France.

LS is Lightroom, should have been LR - don't know what I was thinking.
Food is a serious matter, I think they still use the guillotine for food/wine related offences here - either way I'm not taking any chances

[Steve S]

Would have been better to bracket the shot or use a filter......................best i can do with it. Still a little shadow noise.

[jiro]

OK, this is how I would probably push the post-processing on this image.



and this is the original "jpeg dump file" from CrissCross:




It was really a challenge to work with but it was fun, too.

[mariejo]

Hey Jiro, I really like what you did with that picture ! was just so different...!

[jiro]

Hey Jiro, I really like what you did with that picture ! was just so different...!

Thanks. We all have different ways of interpreting an image. This is how I try to see it and I'm glad there's photoshop and ACDSEE Pro to help me realize the idea. I won't probably try to do it again... too much headache. Just joking.

[Peter Ryan]

Double processed the image for the sky and land and blended. Increased white balance during processing for colour control. The best I can do with a quick and dirty result given time constraints.

[Peter Ryan]

Small additional adjustment with Shadow/Highlights.

[mariejo]

you are so good all of you...all that ' vocabulary' really makes me feel like a green beginner now even more( feelcloser to light green)...LOL !!

Small additional adjustment with Shadow/Highlights.

[Pictus]

Just playing around, basically mixed with a new BG in multiply mode + some tweaks with NIK Color FX...
Here the PSD compressed with 7-zip(WinRaR can unpack)
Bigger size here

[rob marshall]

Sorry, Chris, but the noise in this shot is dreadful. About the worst I have ever seen. You used a Canon 350D, which is OK (got one myself), and the lens was 50-150 - what lens was it? I can't work out why it's so noisy. This screengrab is from the RAW without any edits. I tried editing it in CS5 and it just made it worse.

You shot it at 1/640s on ISO200. You had plenty of scope for ISO100, which might have improved it a little, but there is still something else wrong here.

[crisscross]

..Here the PSD compressed with 7-zip(WinRaR can unpack)

thanks Pictus - interesting additions, but I would like to explore turning those layers off. Unfortunately I can't uncompress your .7z file as I am on a mac OS10.5.8 (32 bit) and neither system nor Stuffit 10 will expand it. Can you use Stuffit or something or nothing if it compresses to 2.3MB?

[crisscross]

[QUOTE=rob marshall;80629] Sorry, Chris, but the noise in this shot is dreadful. About the worst I have ever seen. You used a Canon 350D, which is OK (got one myself), and the lens was 50-150 - what lens was it? I can't work out why it's so noisy. This screengrab is from the RAW without any edits. I tried editing it in CS5 and it just made it worse.

You shot it at 1/640s on ISO200. You had plenty of scope for ISO100, which might have improved it a little, but there is still something else wrong here. [QUOTE]

The noise is worse on the dump than the RAW Rob; the dump is a DPP conversion & downsize Qual 6. It is still bad, that is the problem, but often folks use noiseware that I have not tried and swear by it.

This was about 4 months into DSLR ownership, much of which was taken learning about RAW & choosing lens (Sigma), which I think is excellent (though not IS). The scene was changing quite fast and I just didn't have the experience to optimise settings as I would now or try a few different.